Under
by nonsequiturvy
Summary: Regina doesn't venture beyond the underworld often, but she always manages to escape the attention of the other gods when she does—until, one day, he sees her. And there's nothing she can do to soften the blow when Robin, son of Demeter, falls head over heels. Nothing she can do when their love crosses the stars and starts a war between the cosmos, except fall hard and fight back.
1. Earth

**A/N:** Greek Mythology AU for OQ week. Guys, this is a weird one. Super different from anything I've done so far, I think? Nervous about it. Tell me your thoughts! Good, bad and everything in between.

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_Part I: Earth_

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Regina doesn't venture above ground often. Not as often as she'd like, anyway.

It's not that she doesn't love it, to be up there, to warm her skin in the sun and feel the grass with her toes, as she searches the skies and finds nothing but blue. It's that she loves it a little too much, if such a thing is possible, and every moment she spends soaked in the light is another she'll regret later when she's shrouded by darkness once more.

She convinces herself she really doesn't mind it most days. They're nearly impossible for her to tell apart, when one just bleeds right into the next, and she's not sure she even understands what a "day" is, anyway—without the sun touching the dead down here, there is no morning, nor midday solstice; only eternal, timeless night.

Which is why the whole curious notion of hours and minutes and reading them in the shadows on a sundial absolutely fascinates her, and has been the subject of rather extensive study, when she finds herself bored silly by tedious matters of the underworld.

Based on Regina's repeated perusal—the yellowed stacks skimming her cavernous ceilings have seen drier, sunnier moments in the monastery libraries from which she'd "borrowed" them—humans seem remarkably narrow-minded, to think only in terms of night and day. Of things like mealtimes, and bedtimes, and whatever falls in between.

Although she supposes one could argue that down here, Regina only knows of life as it ceases in death. The final bookend, so to speak (it preoccupies mortal thought more than living itself seems to do, something she has always found rather ironic).

And whatever lies beyond _that_…well…there's not much to be said for it. Not much that humans would care to believe, anyway.

So, more often than not, most days will amount to more death, then more monotony to follow. And for every ferry full of lost souls drifting down the river Styx, at least twice weekly some unexpected cargo will have smuggled its way onboard.

At first, Regina sympathized with them, the brave yet foolish men who were brave but foolish enough to hitchhike from the land of the living to the domain of the dead, and negotiate for mercy from their queen. It would move her to tears, to hear them plead for their loved ones—wives who'd been taken too soon, sons who should have seen their parents go first—and whatever they offered to give in return.

But it has never been in her capacity to upset the balance between their world and hers, something she always regretted that they never understood. She may tend to the dead, but death isn't her doing; it's simply the natural way of things, and when the men who sought her charity were in turns respectful of her power and resentful for it, as though she owned both their hearts and the blame for how they ached and ached, Regina felt her own bitterness grow and fester, until she had no room left for such sentiments as pity and remorse and compassion. Not for those who dare to exploit her hospitality, demand she defy the limits they're too shortsighted to appreciate in life.

Which is why she spends most days now begrudging these humans who don't understand her, even as she longs to understand them—their obsession with the finite edges of time, how they use it up by asking for more. Their all-consuming fear of the dark, when the light is what they take for granted.

So no matter how tempted she is to feel the sun for herself, to witness life in bright pops of color instead of death in morose shades of grey, hatred always draws her back under. Hatred for those who freely wander the earth and lay it to waste as they please, while Regina is banished to dwell beneath it, as eternal penance for the crimes her mother had committed against the gods.

But on other days, such as this one, the pull above ground overpowers every rational argument against it. Today, she's feeling bold.

It hasn't been terribly busy thus far. She's just had to fend off the one man, bearing a leer, a cane and a bribe for the ferryman (she'll have words with Leroy later, she thinks with some exasperation). Upon finding Regina alone in her gardens of ash and tombstone, he had then proceeded to insist she bring back his wife, who'd just suffered some unfortunate boating accident, so that he may have another turn at killing her all over again.

Regina had politely declined his offer, as novel as it was, to spin straw into gold in exchange for this one act of kindness. What use did she have for such frivolous things? Honestly. Men these days, thinking they can buy their way into and out of everything. Just what, exactly, was she expected to do with a heap of gold? Distribute it amongst her royally dead subjects? They already have all the time in the world, and absolutely nothing to spend it on as it is.

Well, she supposes she could finally pay off all her library debts. But if bewildering the monks is the most villainous thing anyone is going to rightfully accuse her of doing, then so be it. It wouldn't do to create a paper trail anyway; strictly speaking, she's to stay put where she is, has been fairly prohibited from ever putting so much as a toe to the soil, and that grey-bearded idiot sitting atop Mount Olympus will be none too pleased to discover Regina breaks their contract often, and with great pleasure.

Yes, today will be one of those days, she decides with conviction, as she makes her way to earth.

(She makes sure to take the long route, giving the seas a wide berth; today is _not _going to be one of those days wherein she gets drawn into another long and heated argument with her half-sister, who's been determined for a century and a half to overthrow the Charmings from where they decorate either side of Leopold's celestial throne.)

Regina can already feel the damp, oppressive fog of the underworld lifting like a veil as sunlight blinds her eyes and the busy bustling of forest life rushes through her ears, a heady, deafening sound. Tree frogs croak their little tunes as beetles scuttle underfoot and birds soar through the sky overhead. A stream of water runs nearby, babbling all the way. Blood red rhododendrons dot the path, shying visibly away from every step that brings her closer, as though they somehow sense the death that lingers on her. But she won't be deterred, not when there are songs of nature to be heard, to dance to, to echo on in her head long after they've reached their coda.

She can't help it. She closes her eyes, and she starts to spin.

Regina twirls until she's dizzy from it, delirious and giddy as the light absorbs through her skin and straight into her bloodstream. There's a bubbly, exhilarated sound somewhere, and she only laughs louder, smiles harder when she realizes it's coming from her. A tree root catches hold of her skirts, but a carefree movement or two frees it, and she'll mend the tear later, maybe, but for now there's only time to bask in the moment before it's gone.

She's thinking it's been too long since she last paid a visit to her favorite library, drove Friar Tuck mad with yet another document gone missing from his archives, when she senses the slightest shift in the wind, a subtle subsiding of the birds' chirping and the frogs' chanting. She swivels slowly to a stop as she feels someone watching her, eyes burning into her back, hotter and far less pleasantly than the sun had just a second ago.

Regina turns, ever so slightly, chin to clavicle and gaze leveled just above her shoulder. The sunbeams hit her lashes and as she blinks them out, a man some yards behind her slowly comes into view.

He's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

Though dressed head to toe in loose, unfitted garments, he looks undeniably strong, the hard lean lines of his body filling them in just the right places. A belt and quiver hug him across the waist and back, green cloak flowing freely where it just kisses the ground but knotted securely in place at the juncture of his open collar as it tapers down to a v over his chest.

And his face—it's a face that stops time and starts wars.

Yet he's the one who'd been staring at her first, and still he stares now, transfixed to the spot as though struck dumb by the sight of her (and what an odd sight it must be, this pale woman with crimson lips wrapped in a virginal white dress and dancing barefoot in the woods). He's staring, and then he's shrugging, almost ruefully now that she's caught him mid-gape; the smile that spreads slowly over his sinfully handsome face is dimpled and half-crooked, and she feels something she hasn't felt in a long, long time.

Warm. She feels warm all over. Not just where skin's been exposed to sun, but where the heat of his gaze has penetrated everything underneath, blood simmering, insides softening, heart thawing and she feels…

Alive.

She's not entirely sure if that qualifies as a good thing or a very, very bad one.

He can't be a human, Regina thinks dubiously, can he? Humans see right through her unless she allows it otherwise (the poor Friar has thought his monastery haunted by pilfering poltergeists for years), yet this man—he _sees_ her, down to her very soul, it seems, and what's worse, he won't look away.

But if he isn't a human, then he must be a god, like her, or borne of one, a demigod at the very least. Who, though? She'd thought she could recognize them all by face—or carefully inked illustrations of them, anyway (of all the irreplaceable things that Friar Tuck has most unfortunately _mis_placed, his hand-drawn genealogical tree of the Olympian bloodlines smarts the most).

In fact, Regina has had several near run-ins with one such god of the lesser variety, between shelves and encasements of rare artifacts, as she'd purloined library after library of all the information she could on those who rule earth from the high heavens above it. The She Charming in particular, the goddess of beauty and of love, who out of hate had exiled Regina's mother to the prison of the gods for her crimes—for seducing Snow White's father, and for stealing his lightning bolt while he slept to slit his wife's throat.

(Or so read the accounts of Cora's demise, which had been written by an undisclosed hand.)

When Regina's not digging up the well-kept secrets of a family she will never know, there is of course her favorite pastime, of studying up on the humans and the odd things they fixate on, which seem to similarly fascinate her companion amongst the dusty stacks. The girl is beguiling but bookish, and even without the good Friar's quill to parchment identifying her as Belle, she reeks with the same prepossessing intelligence of all Athena's brethren.

And because Belle is just as smart as her heritage implies, if she recognizes Regina (and she would even if she were only half as smart as she ought to be), she breathes not a word, ignoring her just as completely as Regina does her.

Which suits Regina just fine, really. She doesn't care to know those who've deserted her to darkness and shunned her to hell, any more than she cares to join them where they sit on the sun. She'll take her light with the trees and their frogs, thank you very much, with the streams and their pebbles sanded smooth beneath her feet.

This man, though…there's something different about him. He appears determined to see her, to know her, to never lose her from sight.

And no matter how hard her gaze probes his, taking in the blue of his eyes and the lines of some unaccountable period of history etched into their corners, she can't place him. Has no earthly clue who he is, nor why he's staring so hard.

His bow and arrow—a descendant of Eros, perhaps? It would make sense, given how her pulse has picked up speed the way human ones are speculated to do when made a target by the god of love. But she's always pictured Eros as a pleasantly rotund, not particularly athletic sort of deity, his aim accurate but his actions leisurely. It's a great stretch to imagine this magnificent specimen of the male form even remotely related to one who's rumored to be more cherub than god.

Even so, Regina continues to watch him apprehensively, wondering whether she would be better off not knowing, if she ought to make herself scarce before he in turn gets too curious, comes too close.

Unless he already knows who she is.

The thought alarms her for a brief instant before she concludes it highly unlikely, because if he did then he would have been long gone by now, instead of…just…standing there, with his lower jaw slack and his bow dangling uselessly at his side.

She's clearly interrupted him mid-hunt with her unforeseen presence in his forest, though she can't help but feel like she's the one being hunted now instead.

Indecision weighs her feet to the ground. She glares balefully over one shoulder at him, a perfect picture of misgiving.

And then he speaks.

"Hullo," he greets her finally, amiably, invitingly, but with just a touch of hesitation.

He still hasn't moved—seems to believe she'll vanish into thin air like a spooked deer if he takes even a hint of a step forward, and he's not wrong about that. A shroud of purple and a cloud of smoke will transport her back to the underworld faster than the blink of a human eye, and she's just wary enough of him that she's considering it, very seriously, at the current moment.

"I'm Robin," he offers, free palm out as if to indicate that he means no harm. "Son of Demeter."

Demeter. Of course. It makes sense. Famed for her jurisdiction over the harvest and fertility of the earth, Regina has wandered right into the goddess' domain, waltzed amongst the lush green vegetation and dug gleeful toes into its rich, fruitful soil.

Even so. Her eyes narrow further. _Okay, son of Demeter. What is it that you want from me?_

Regina would love nothing more than to write him off, to retort that she's never heard of any such son, that the Demeter of her meticulously researched pedigrees has only ever been recorded to give birth to girls; but this Robin seems to possess the ability to disarm her with a single stare, and heaven be damned what had she been about to say?

"You're, ah—" he seems at a loss of words himself, while her thoughts whir and her suspicions mount. Why _does _the son of Demeter seem so hell-bent on engaging her in conversation, as awkward as he is in going about the whole thing? Perhaps he's here to pass along a message on behalf of his nurturing mother. Maybe Regina has violated the earth in some way, rendered it barren with a few careless missteps.

Which is absolutely ridiculous, she quietly seethes. Just because she oversees the dead doesn't mean anyone has the right to deny her a place amongst the living.

Regina feels her ears start to steam and her eyes start to glower. Uh oh. Not good. Even if this Robin fellow weren't here to convey some concern of the precious Mother Earth's, it wouldn't do for Regina's anger to get the better of her and ignite a headful of flames in her hair. That was always the most mortifying pitfall to her power, that it came with a remarkably short fuse and a rather conspicuous, uncontrollable show of her temper.

Still, something tells her he's not here to cause trouble—that he's here of his own doing, and that in fact maybe she will be his _un_doing; she feels the anger abate, his captivating gaze like a balm on her nerves, until she finds herself growing mildly curious again. So is he a god, then, or only half of one?

Only one way to know for sure. Gods are not obligated to pay a fee to the ferryman for passage into the underworld. They're not exactly encouraged to invite themselves freely into her realm either, but she has a strong suspicion that this one will have no qualms about following her where she's about to go.

"Wait," he starts, but she's already gone.

It occurs to Regina, as she traverses ground and slinks her way back to the darkness below, that she'd never once spoken a single word to him.


	2. Hell

**A/N:** I should probably mention, if it has not become apparent already, that I've taken major liberties with the Hades/Persephone myth, and any discrepancies or things glaringly inconsistent with the real story are all of my own ignorant doing. If anyone's greatly offended by this, though, I will happily hear what I can do to make it better :)

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_Part II: Hell_

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Leroy gives her a gruff nod as she passes, then a low bow to the man two steps behind her.

It figures, that her ferryman would know him. He's quite the social butterfly, for as crotchety as he is. And he's been particularly grumpy of late, after another pointless war had recently quadrupled his business overnight.

"For people so obsessed with staying alive, they sure love killing each other, don't they," he will often grouch to her in passing, and Regina can't help but agree. "Great reflection on humanity, that."

(He's no fonder of this job than Regina is, but at least his is a paying one. He could technically leave if he wanted, if it weren't for the one very good reason he has to stay—six of them, actually, six brothers to feed and keep a good roof over their heads. But Regina, as eternally damned as she is, has not even the illusion of choice in the matter, and that's all she's ever wanted, really. A say in her own fate, whether it be one of fortune or meant to fail.)

So after the last round of souls has rowed through, and there's a decisive lull till the next, Leroy will mutter something about having plans, then suddenly make himself scarce. Won't resurface again for it's hard to say how long, as Regina has no real sense of time to tell; but he'll be a great deal happier, if not walking quite as straight as before, when he does.

But as long as he doesn't steer his boat in tipsy circles (it would be bad form, wouldn't it, to drown his passengers when they're already dead), it makes little difference to Regina how much wine he's had to drink, or who poured him another glass.

Really, it doesn't.

"Good to see you again, old friend," greets Robin, "it's been too long," and they chuckle together as though sharing a joke, and Regina grits her teeth as she stalks away at a faster pace. But Robin follows smoothly behind and without any sound of resistance from her ferryman, no toll to pay nor bribe to give.

A god, then. Not a man.

Or half one, half the other, who has friends in very high places—metaphorically speaking, that is, as they are currently so far below earth it's a wonder they haven't emerged to the other side. (The geography of things is just as bewildering to Regina as the timing of them, to be perfectly honest.)

So all in all, this little experiment of hers to find out more about Robin, son of Demeter without actually having to speak to him has failed spectacularly; the only thing she's managed to do thus far is lead him straight to her home, which is apparently not as unfamiliar to him as she would've liked or expected.

Well, how was she to know this forest god and her ferryman were regular drinking companions, for heaven's sake?

She's not sure why it bothers her. But it does, immensely.

Robin strides confidently past the stone threshold now, as though she'd personally invited him to cross it, despite the fact that she'd made it a point to completely ignore his entire existence somewhere between Athens and the Aegean Sea. (In her haste to see if she could shake him off, avoiding Zelena had become less of a priority; luckily, though, there had been no sister in sight, no explanation Regina would then have to give as to why some absurd god had taken to trailing so determinedly after her.)

"We'll gather the usual crew together again in a fortnight," promises Leroy, and Robin's confirmatory hum inflames Regina's nerves all the way to her throne room.

The room is really not so much a room as it is a semi-isolated space that opens out into nothing (all she has is space, down here), with a towering perimeter of great stone columns tapering to a sudden drop into the abyss below. An enormous throne commands the immediate attention of anyone who enters, despite Regina's best attempts at having shoved it off to the most inconspicuous corner. It's absolutely hideous—upholstered in tacky, gothic velvet, armrests constructed from bloodstained sword hilts, the floor beneath it rather melodramatically littered with marble-carved skulls and various other human bones.

Regina will have a few choice words for the predecessor who had commissioned such an eyesore, should they ever meet. Not that she particularly cares for whatever reputation her title has earned her above ground; but if humans are to embrace death when it comes, rather than spend their entire lives fearing it, then misleading images like these certainly aren't helping matters.

In addition to its predictable gaudiness, her throne has also gathered centuries of dust; it's embarrassingly exaggerated in size, for one thing, and having to climb three feet just to sit on it seems such a chore that Regina hardly ever bothers. Besides, it's so ludicrously morbid she would have a hard time taking herself seriously, let alone imagining others to do the same. There's something unsavory about the whole notion of lording over the dead from an iron throne, a preposterous implication of power that Regina takes no pride in.

But even so, she does find the occasional use for it. Frightening off unwelcome houseguests, for example.

And she means entirely to frighten Robin off. Truly, she does. At least to push his limits until they reveal which way they go, to test what will deter him from whatever mysterious quest has brought him to the brink of the underworld.

His soft footfalls finally slow to still as she hovers casually at the cliff ledge.

"Can I help you?" she asks tartly, doesn't bother to turn. Her voice carries in front of her to break the silence behind. But when he doesn't fill the remaining space with a response of his own, she chances another backward glance over her shoulder.

He's standing at the epicenter of the room instead of loitering by the doorway as she'd expected, and he doesn't seem to find their surroundings the least bit imposing. In fact, the longer Regina stares, the less sure she is that he's even taken the time to look anywhere but her.

"Hello," he smiles, all lopsided and sending her heart skittering everywhere. Stupid organ. It's so predictably repetitive the majority of the time that she hardly ever notices it beating there, but now it's causing her nothing but trouble.

She flushes, hears herself sounding unsure when she questions next, "Is that all you followed me here to say?"

"I hadn't given much thought past that part, no," he admits, words then giving way to a low chuckle. One shoulder rises while the other falls, a sheepish shrug. "I suppose I was hoping at least for a simple hi back?"

"Hi," she complies doubtfully, with a face to match her tone. When he scratches self-consciously at the back of his head, she presses on, "And what were you hoping would happen after?"

"Conversation?" he suggests, and she treats him to a mulish stare down. Or not. "Perhaps then simply enjoying another's company in peace," he qualifies agreeably.

He's ridiculous, she thinks exasperatedly. Does he not realize where they are? Purgatory is only an illusion of peace. "Who says I need the company?"

He rubs a thumb pad over the stubble of his upper lip before responding. "I apologize if I've behaved presumptuously," he says at last, sounding appropriately repentant yet carefully hopeful, "but I thought perhaps you desired a friend."

Oh, he did, did he? Regina's anger flares all over again when he seems to come to the same realization, too late, that he'd said exactly the wrong thing. The blind, heroic audacity of him, to intrude upon a damsel in her solitude and think her in distress. Well, if he'd come in search of someone to rescue or, worse, to pity, he'll find none of that here.

"Friend?" she scoffs. "What makes you think I need more of those?"

A flying furry object takes that as its cue to flutter to a perch on Regina's shoulder. She gives the vampire bat a gentle belly rub with the side of one finger and he niggles about, chirping quietly into her ear.

"Yes, I would agree with that," she mutters, to which the bat makes another small squeaky sound and Robin looks curiously at them both.

"Or at least a companion more comparable to your size," he amends, and the bat trains an indignant beady side eye on him.

"No, you're right, I don't trust him either," Regina states primly to the bat as he twitters again, fluffing out his chest and looking greatly affronted.

Robin seems he would be on the verge of laughing were it not for the very real risk of getting assaulted by a small yet spirited animal. As it is, he bites his smile back, a slow, teasing slip of his lower lip in between his teeth. He sets his bow on the ground in good faith and, when Regina's cool gaze neither persuades nor protests otherwise, boldly advances one foot forward.

The bat begins to chirp out a warning when he nears, but Regina hushes the critter. No need to overreact; If Robin makes some untoward move, she estimates that one quick shove should be sufficient to send him over the ledge, buy herself a few seconds to disappear on him for good this time. Gods may fly, but they can fall first, too.

She has half a mind to just get it over with now—surely she has better things to do than entertain visitors she hadn't even asked over—but the other half is irritatingly ambivalent about getting rid of him so soon, for reasons that she'll simply have to consider when soon becomes later.

"This is quite the view," Robin observes offhandedly as he comes to stand some respectful distance to the left of her semi-hostile glare, and she can't decide whether his tone is mocking or genuinely complimentary. "Stunning," he adds, looking back her way, and now she can't tell if he's referring to the infinity shaded in grey beyond, or to something else—someone else—entirely.

She's not used to it feeling so warm down here.

Regina turns abruptly away when his eyes seek hers out again.

He says then, "You go up there quite a lot." It's not a question.

"Wouldn't you?" she asks bluntly, unthinkingly. Slightly horrified by the raw honesty of her response, she backtracks belatedly, cursing herself to high hell all the while, "How would you even know that anyway?"

The last thing she needs inconveniencing her life is some god who's taken it upon himself to start spying on her.

"I saw it in the way you danced," Robin tells her, earnestly, free of ridicule. She realizes the resulting quiet that passes between them is suddenly twice as loud because she's been busy holding her breath. "As though you'd danced under the sun many a time before." Regina can't manage more than a speechless stare as he scans the ravine just beneath their feet, bottomless and dense with fog. His voice is carefully mild as he continues, "Somehow, you don't strike me to be much of a dancer down here."

She's barely spoken two words to him, and very piqued words at that, sharp little jabs to keep that probing gaze of his at bay. Yet he seems to see her in sharper clarity than she does her own reflection, always staring so distantly back at her from the glassy surfaces of river Lethe.

If he can ascertain as much with a quick perusal alone, she wonders what else he'd uncover, if it were his hands and not his eyes on her instead.

But these are thoughts she shouldn't have, so she forces them aside before he has a chance to read them all over her face, too.

"Can't dance if I can't see where I'm going," she tries, aiming for lighthearted, a jibe at the dark, but it sounds too strained to pass off as a joke. To Robin's credit, he's still attentively looking in every direction but the one that would bring her back into view. It gives her a chance to inspect him closer, his infuriatingly handsome profile, the strong, chiseled jaw, and the smile he hasn't seemed able to abandon since she let him follow her home. It's kind without pity, compassionate without a trace of condescension.

Some of the tension leaks out of her, relaxing the square of her shoulders and dropping her guard, ever so slightly. It almost doesn't bother her, how she only seems to grow more and more careless with each defense he somehow slips through on his way to her heart.

"I'm sure there are ways around that," Robin is informing her with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that she catches just in time before he looks away again, and then he's rummaging through his inner pockets.

"I've brought something for you," he tells her, and tiny bat claws, sharp and mistrusting, dig into her shoulder. But Regina finds herself watching Robin with more curiosity than anything else. There's only one thing in the whole of the universe, really, that strikes legitimate fear in her, for its capacity to incapacitate otherwise indestructible beings such as herself.

And she highly doubts he's hidden Leopold's thunderbolt in his riding cloak.

She feels her bat friend's spine go rigid. Clearly he's not so sure. She shrugs him into a gentle takeoff, and he gives a disgruntled tweet as he resumes flight (but he doesn't go far, not when he still has his misgivings about the floppy-haired fellow standing so close to his queen now; so he settles to rest nearby on an arm of her throne, daintily avoiding its glinting sword edges).

Surely enough, when Robin's hand finally emerges, it's not a shard of lightning enclosed in his grasp but a collection of long, prickly stalks. "A token of the light, milady," he announces solemnly, and the green buds rise to full bloom before her eyes, their petals blazing white and as blinding as fresh-fallen snow.

She's blinking wildly at the bedazzling sight, her gasp of surprise muffled by the palms she's cupped to her mouth.

Flowers. In the underworld.

Who had ever heard of such an odd and glorious thing?

She stares at them, and she stares at them some more, in blatant fascination. They look real enough. What she wouldn't give to know if they feel real enough, smell real enough.

Flowers. Her mind wraps around the word and cradles it close, careful not to crush the petals or break the stems.

They're the most exquisite she's ever come across. And they're…they're for her?

_For you_, _yes_, his smile seems to confirm, open and disarming. _They're for you._

And they're flowers she's fairly certain he hadn't been carrying with him when they'd first locked gazes back in his forest.

"When did you have time to pick those?" She musters up a scowl, though her insides are singing, her fingers itching to take the proffered blossoms, trace their delicate edges and scale their thorns with unbreakable skin.

"Oh," Robin replies, maddeningly, "I can assure you I had plenty. Or did you think there was any other reason why I hadn't managed to catch up with you sooner?"

She mutters something along the lines of _insufferable_, and his rich answering laugh is cut short as though he's just been interrupted, though Regina had heard not a thing. He withdraws the hand he'd extended and buries an ear into the rose petals, his features a show of deep contemplation as he nods and murmurs something in exchange for nothing but silence.

"That plant is _not_ talking to you," Regina bursts out exasperatedly, but he's looking so intent that she begins to doubt herself, and damn this man for overturning her entire world, and all her assumptions of it, in a single day. (Or however long it's been. Time is a funny thing; it moves at a snail's pace when she's focused on nothing else, but she wouldn't be surprised if the sun had already set a thousand times in the moments he's spent just looking at her.) She frowns uncertainly then, "Is it?"

"It would be rather mortifying if that weren't the case," Robin answers her very seriously, straightening back up, "because I converse with them rather frequently, and I'd hate to think it was all one-sided." His grin is just as spellbinding as the bouquet he finally coaxes into her hand, and her thoughts jar at the contact, a simple brush of his fingers over hers, and then the heat that lingers on her skin. "Perhaps I am the one in need of a friend, then."

"I'm sure my ferryman would be happy to oblige," she tells him loftily as she resists the urge to bring the flowers up to her nose. She settles for leaning subtly forward instead, breathing in their sweet fragrance as it suffuses the stale, surrounding air.

Robin's smile could light the entire realm now. "Not that kind of friend, my queen."

She conveniently hides her flush behind the roses he's given her. "I'd really prefer you not call me that."

"Why ever not?" He's leaned back, shoulder to grey stone column, arms crossed genially over his chest and looking altogether quite comfortable. She thinks she should be irked, livid even, that this god who smells of roses and pine needles has stolen into her home and collapsed millennia of carefully erected walls with a simple bouquet and a smile.

But somehow, Regina can't be bothered to care.

He still awaits an answer, so she gives him one in the form of a sardonic half-smile, followed by a question, meant rhetorically: "Who wants to be called the queen of the damned?"

"Queen of the dead," Robin corrects firmly, in a tone to imply it is what it is and nothing more, and she finds she has nothing to say to that in return.

"So what am I to call you, then?" he proceeds innocently after a beat, and she's never had anyone fish for her name so persistently despite her refusal to bite. Maybe it's the scent of roses drugging her mind, but she feels deliriously content, and not nearly careful enough to keep it contained. She wonders giddily if she should make this easy or difficult for him.

She chooses difficult. "And what do you need to call me anything for?"

"Well," and his dimples deepen with his smile, "we are friends now, aren't we?"

She gives a pensive hum, then responds evasively, "Maybe."

"A maybe is most certainly not a no," Robin remarks aloud with satisfaction, as though addressing an invisible chorus of spectators, who've just borne witness to this most astonishing first act of some bizarre play—goddess of the underworld, befriended by a god of the fertile green earth.

It's utter nonsense, is what it is.

And she's determined to stamp out the folly, before she's the one who's made a fool.

"Thank you, for the roses," Regina tells him formally, then, "I'll see you out now," with an attempted air of finality; the amused but obliging nod he gives her lets her know that even though she's failed, he'll humor her anyway, as he pushes himself off the stone column.

"Until next we meet, then, milady," he says, low, so low it sinks into her bones and thrums there.

They walk with a human's stride this time, side by side, as they wind their way back to the gates of the underworld, where so few have left of the many that entered. Regina is grateful that Robin, as a stranger to her realm, seems not to notice when she purposely leads them down the longer path of the five rivers.

(She makes sure to avoid the caves, where her black-spotted canine companion currently slumbers. Pongo is remarkably affectionate for a three-headed dog, but not nearly as forgiving as a vampire bat, when it comes to perceived threats to his queen.)

Silence accompanies them on their stroll, comfortable but laced with heady undertones, a thrilling tension that plucks at Regina's nerves like a rare stringed instrument. Her pulse runs wild against her throat, and she wonders why escorting him out feels like caging herself in. Her heart only hammers harder as the rush of three rivers converges to one, and the great Acheron roars into view, feeding through the border between her world and his.

"Thank you," Robin says warmly when she opts to go no further, "for having me."

Regina becomes acutely aware of her hands, still clutching the snow-white blooms, while his remain politely clasped in front of him.

It's not until he's turned from bidding Leroy farewell ("In a fortnight, then, if not sooner," he'd told the ferryman, though he never took his eyes off Regina as he said it), when she realizes what he's left behind.

"You forgot your bow," she frowns suddenly as his back retreats.

He tosses one last brilliant smile her way. "I've no need for it at the moment," he says with a one-shouldered shrug. "Keep it. Consider it a promise."

"What promise?" She glowers, nettled, perplexed. Is this the custom of other gods, to always speak in riddles?

"That I have every intention to return for it."

_For you_, his eyes avow where his words alone do not, _I have every intention to return for you._

"I think he likes you," grunts Leroy after Robin has bent forehead to knee in a swift bow and gone, just as swiftly as he'd come.

Regina sniffs unpleasantly in response and turns away before her ferryman can make some snide comment about her rose bouquet, or the disbelieving smile that's now spreading uncontrollably across her face.


End file.
